


i've got no soul to sell

by disarmlow



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: A whole lot of major character deaths, Dark, DragonQueen but not in a good way, Everything's Awful, F/F, F/M, Heavy Angst, OutlawQueen but also not in a good way, SO MUCH DAMN ANGST, This is so dark, do not read this if you're expecting anything kind, seriously I'm not kidding about the angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:50:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7931812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarmlow/pseuds/disarmlow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had expected something bigger from the murder of herself, of that part of herself that she had rejected for so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've got no soul to sell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Madje_Knotts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madje_Knotts/gifts).



> I tagged this appropriately but since I got a comment about how this was unpleasant I'll warn you again yes, it's dark and sad and awful. I wrote this for a fic exchange and like me, they love angst. I think it's honest, if that helps. 
> 
> To rid any possible confusion this is set somewhere in season 6 after Regina's split from the "Evil Queen" which I have so many issues with so this is my break it instead of fix it.

When she killed her doppelganger, Regina expected magic. She expected a burst of black energy; some indication that a part of her was gone.

  
There was nothing but fire and blood, and a body, Regina looking into her own face, into her own staring, empty brown eyes. It had been disconcerting.

  
She had expected something bigger from the murder of herself, of that part of herself that she had rejected for so long. What she hadn't expected were the dreams.  
Maleficent snaked over to where Regina was sitting at the edge of the bed. She slid her slim, naked body over Regina's bare back, and Regina shivered. Her lover took that as a sign of lust, but Regina was cold all over from her dreams – she couldn’t quite call them nightmares.

  
She was tired down to her bones. She felt empty and full at the same time. She remembered bits and pieces of her dreams, and Maleficent's fingers on her breasts felt wrong, although they'd been lovers off and on for years. They felt smaller, thinner. She remembered strong hands, more calloused than Daniel's on them, she remembered warm blue eyes.

She shook her head. She remembered nothing.

  
"Stop," she said, quietly, and Maleficent snaked back to her side of the bed without protest and lit a cigarette. She moved fast, like the lizard she transformed into, and her tongue did things unimaginable. Regina looked at her and she shrugged, crossing her arms beneath her small breasts and pushing them up.

  
It wasn't love. It wasn't Daniel. It wasn't even exactly comfort – more like rage. The sheets had been tangled and thrown off the bed hours before. Suddenly Regina remembered a piece of a dream, a man with muscled arms and shoulders in a white wife-beater, all but running toward her, putting her face in his hands and kissing her kissing her kissing her.

  
She didn't recognize him, exactly, but he felt warm and familiar. Ridiculous, these dreams, these memories of the woman she'd become somehow. The woman who'd befriended Snow White, the girl responsible for the destruction of her life. Regina couldn't imagine what she had been thinking. As always, Daniel's sweet, young face was in the back of her head, but faded somehow.

 

Warm blue eyes and a half smile dominated her thoughts after sleep. During the day, she could forget. During the day, she didn't feel so cold.

  
Early morning was the worst, when she first cracked open an eye, usually hungover with her head aching from wine Maleficent brought over.

  
Opening her eyes every morning, she saw him. This man with the lion tattoo that she remembered tracing with her slim fingers. This man with her name like a breath on his full lips.

  
Had she loved him? Had he loved her? For once, it didn't seem like a betrayal. It seemed like a hole inside her.

  
She hadn't seen this man among the bodies in Storybrooke. She'd killed them all with fire and she'd piled the bodies and burned them in the town square but these maddening visions had no basis among them.

  
Had she lost him? She had been in love, her future self, the goody two shoes bitch she'd become with her friends Snow White and Emma the Savior, using her white magic against Regina.

  
Regina's rage was too strong for her doppelganger. Her rage made the world burn, and Maleficent the dragon beside her, wrapping her tail protectively around her while the other Regina threw her weak white magic.

  
Storybrooke lay in ruins, burning from her fireballs and Maleficent's dragon breath.

  
She'd blasted her future self with her stupid mom hair and pantsuit, her body hitting the brick wall of the clock tower over and over until blood ran from her red mouth. Her doppelganger smiled then, smiled and Regina looked away. It was strange to see yourself bleeding, dying, but not feeling it.

  
She'd said something with her last breath, breathed out something like a name, but Regina had already turned to set Prince Charming on fire – his perfect hair burning off his head as he screamed in pain, still lunging at her until Maleficent's tail knocked him down and he lay there, twitching, for what seemed like hours.

  
She'd laid waste to them all, all but her sister. She'd let Zelena take the child to Oz, just to get the hell out of her way. Regina didn't go back to the Enchanted Forest. Maleficent yelled at her about it for a couple days, but the luxuries of this world eventually swayed her to stay. Running water, light at the flip of a switch – Regina told herself that's why she stayed in Storybrooke.

  
She left Maleficent in her bed and wandered around the huge house her doppelganger had created for herself. She found a child's room and remembered a boy with wild hair and she was glad it was Maleficent who had killed him. She felt breathless in this room, among a child's things, with a smell like cookies and sweat. She couldn't get a good breath in and she was about to walk out when she saw the huge story book.

  
She flipped through the pages and stopped when she finally saw his face. The man from her dreams. Robin of Locksley, the book said, an honorable thief.  
She flipped faster and saw her dream on the page, this man with the lion tattoo and wicked smile holding her face in his large hands.

  
She touched the page, his face, and her hands were trembling as she remembered him all in blue, holding his hand out to her. She remembered the feel of his skin, the warmth of his arms, his muscled back under her nails, how he felt inside her.

  
She touched her face, felt hot tears on her cheeks. She hadn't cried in fifteen years. Not since Daniel. A sob shook loose from her chest and she threw the book against the wall and set it on fire. It burned in the corner, burned up to the curtains, but Regina couldn't move.

  
She sat on the edge of the child's bed, her future child that Maleficent had burned alive on her order, and smelled his scent and felt his stubby fingers reaching for her and the tears kept coming and she couldn't breathe for the smoke.

  
Finally, Maleficent drug her out of the room, put out the fire as Regina lay crumpled on the bed, and she put her thin arms around her and Regina shivered and shivered.  
She prayed to gods she had never believed in to give her peace. To give her dreamless sleep and take her future self's memories away. She felt better with Maleficent's arms around her, her mouth on her neck, and she cried when she felt her long time lover's mouth on her breasts because it was wrong. It was smaller, colder.

  
The next morning, she cracked open one eye and saw a dimpled smile and messy sandy hair. He smiled his wicked smile at her and the tears came, burning her eyes and face because it'd been so long, so long since she'd felt anything, but especially not this, this love and pain and loss.

  
She knew he was dead. Dead just like Daniel. Even in the future, she couldn't escape her fate. She was being punished, now, punished for all the fire and blood. She had been punished her whole life.

  
She remembered now, had bits and pieces of her doppelganger's memories, and she knew it was a dream, but she reached out anyway, reached out with shaking fingers to touch his face, and suddenly it wasn't him, it was Maleficent's cold and beautiful face, and she smiled, eyes closed, flashing her sharp canines, and Regina pulled back into herself, rolled into a ball.

  
Regina slept fitfully for a while, flashes of a chubby baby holding out his arms to her, a man holding a swaddled infant to his chest, his smile wider than the world, and when the doorbell rang she rose like she was still sleeping, her eyes unfocused.

  
She felt the memories rising in her like a fire in her belly. She wondered if it would be Rumplestiltskin, who had fled to the enchanted forest with his paramour as soon as the fire started.

  
It would be fit, she thought, if he was here to kill her. It would be a circle, the devil who created her here to take her out. The demon she knew, rather than these memories slowly ripping out her insides.

She slowly opened the door.

  
Her doppelganger looked her in the eyes, the same eyes but full of rage, full of fire, and Regina had time to be surprised in a distant way. Her future self didn't speak, and Regina felt the knife in her belly like ice.

  
She was bleeding then, but she didn't cry out for Maleficent. She didn't cover the wound. Her future self walked past her and as she gave into the fire, the rage, she heard Maleficent's dragon roar in pain and smoke filled the house. Regina stumbled to Henry's room. She laid on the bed in a fetal position, bleeding all over the Star Wars sheets. She smelled cookies and sweat and she felt full of love. She saw warm blue eyes and felt his calloused hand on her face.

  
It was a fitting end, she thought, as she closed her eyes, to die in fire and blood. The surprise was that when she opened her eyes again, she saw warm blue eyes and a wicked smile.

  
"Regina," he said, and she was lost.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the OUAT Positivity Gift Exchange over on Tumblr for Madje_Knotts!
> 
> The title is from Closer by NIN.


End file.
